During the past twenty years, very significant steps have been taken in the telecommunication field to more efficiently provide operator services. To a large extent this has been accomplished by the development of equipment which automates many routine operator functions.
One such prior art system is called the Traffic Service Position System No. 1 (TSPS No. 1). In TSPS, operators sit at highly sophisticated consoles and depress buttons to complete the various operator functions. The operator call traffic at many local offices can be routed to a single TSPS and served by centralized groups of operators. Thus, unlike operators who operate cordboards associated with particular local offices, TSPS operators are not associated with particular telephone offices. TSPS is extensively described in R. J. Jaeger, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. 3,484,560, issued Dec. 16, 1969, and also in volume 49 of the Bell System Technical Journal, dated December 1970.
In an improvement is TSPS as taught by A. E. Joel, Jr., U.S. Pat. No. 3,731,000, issued May 1, 1973, groups of TSPS trunk circuits could be located at substantial distances from the main or base station. Accordingly, it was now feasible to serve small isolated toll centers which were not large enough to support an entire TSPS complex by themselves. A concentrator switch was provided at the remote location to connect the remote TSPS trunk circuits to the base TSPS so that the number of voice paths to the base TSPS could be reduced.
In another improvement on TSPS, distinct data links were provided between the base TSPS and the remote location called the remote trunk arrangement (RTA) to facilitate the communication of control information as opposed to voice signals between the base TSPS and RTA. Such an improvement is disclosed by J. A. Hackett in his U.S. Pat. No. 3,958,111, issued May 18, 1976.
Thus, in recent years, operator's services have become more and more centralized with operators serving calls instituted from locations geographically separated by hundreds of miles from the operator positions. This has greatly facilitated the provision of operator services by making it much easier to staff these locations throughout the day and also by making it economically feasible to provide the expensive automated equipment which increases the efficiency of the operator, and at the same time makes his or her job more meaningful. However, since the operators are now separated geographically from the customers they serve, the provision of operator services is more susceptible to failures of the communication equipment and paths which connect the operators to their customers.
More particularly, in the remote trunk arrangement, two distinct and separately routed trunk groups are provided between the RTA and base TSPS. Occasionally, one entire trunk group can be rendered inoperative by equipment failures such as the accidental severance of cables. When this occurs, calling subscribers are connected to operators via the other operative trunk group and service is only marginally degraded. However, when the accident also cuts off outgoing traffic from an associated toll office, calling subscribers are unable to complete a substantial proportion of their direct dialed calls. These subscribers then dial the operator to ascertain why their calls are not being completed. This very quickly overloads the operator capabilities during this emergency and the overload tends to continuously increase as more and more dissatisfied customers seek the assistance of operators. Thus, it becomes imperative under such conditions to inform the calling subscribers of the nature of the difficulty and to further inform them that they should hang up unless their call is of a truly emergency nature.
It is an object of my invention to efficiently provide announcements to calling subscribers served at a remote location during emergency conditions.